A NEW DIGITAL edition of correspondence between Michael Collins and Eamon de Valera during tense negotiations for the Anglo-Irish Treaty is being released for free for Kindles and iPads.

The Royal Irish Academy’s Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) has published the eBook edition, which contains curcial correspondence between the major players in the negotiation of the 1921 treaty including Collins, Arthur Griffith, de Valera and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

The book runs from December 1920 through to January 1922 and includes Lloyd George’s invitation to attend in the talks alongside his assurances that the British government would “give a safe conduct to all who may be chosen to participate in the conference”.

“We most earnestly desire to help in bringing about a lasting peace between the peoples of these two islands,” de Valera replied, “but see no avenue by which it can be reached if you deny Ireland’s essential unity and set aside the principle of national self-determination.”

DIFP says it hopes the digital edition will be a useful resource for second-level history students and teachers given that the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations are among the topics prescribed for documents-based study in the 2014 and 2015 Leaving Certificate.

The eBook is a collaborative venture between DIFP, the Digital Humanities Observatory (DHO), and the National Archives of Ireland (NAI).

The book is available for download via DIFP.